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Friday, May 31, 2013

Cover reveal for Speak Easy by Melanie Harlow. Ah, it looks so good! Can't wait to get my hands on a copy.

Be sure to enter to win a copy for yourself!

-Kailyn

Title: Speak Easy

Author: Melanie Harlow

Expected release date: July 22, 2013 Genre: Historical

Age Group: New Adult

Cover Designed by: Tom Barnes Design

July, 1923. The ‘20s are roaring, and twenty-year-old Tiny O’Mara is desperate for a little anything-goes excitement. But when her father is kidnapped by a mobster in Detroit's exploding organized crime scene, she’s shocked to find herself caught up in the bootlegging wars of Prohibition—and torn between two gorgeous gangsters on opposite sides.
To save her father’s life, she’ll have to choose between them. But deciding whom to trust isn’t easy in a world where everyone wants something—be it booze, money, power, or sex—and no one cares what it takes to get it.
Temptation is everywhere.

About the Author
Melanie Harlow likes her martinis dry, her lipstick red, and her history with the naughty bits left in. SPEAK EASY was inspired by her cocktail-culture obsession, her affection for good gin, and the view from the end of her street. She lifts her glass to NA readers and writers from her home near Detroit, MI.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Covering Creative Ground: How Two Authors with Totally Different Voices Write Together When They’re 1400 Miles Apart?

Nancy Fraser and Patti Shenberger have known each other since 1995, but it wasn’t until 1997 that they even considered writing together and, like a lot of things in life, it all happened by accident. Patti wanted to practice her pitch before an editor appointment. Nancy made the suggestion that she could beef up one of her secondary characters and possibly pitch it as a two-book series. Then, we thought, well if one secondary character deserves a story, shouldn’t another? And, voila! … the idea for a series was born.

Now, you might wonder what happened between then and now that it’s taken this long for us to bring the McCade Legacy to the readers. Well, we shopped the first book around to all the big name houses (you know … the ones that take nine months to a year to response). We kept hearing: great writing, nice voice. Unfortunately, because it was a time travel historical, we weren’t finding any buyers. Then, Nancy moved away … far away … in a crazy grandma-like trance to follow her military son and grandchildren all over Canada.

Even long distance, we did end up publishing that book through an e-publisher back in 2007 and then it was reissued later. We get our rights back on the book at the end of this year and hope to make it part of the Legacy series as a prequel to the other seven books we have planned.

With the first book in the hands of the publisher, we were putting together the proposal for subsequent books, when life reared its ugly head. Over the next four years, we both took turns with life-threatening medical issues. However, even illness can’t keep a good idea down!

We began working on Gambling on Love in the spring of 2012. By the time we’d finished, Entangled Publishing had announced their new Scandalous line and we decided to send our brand new baby off to them. We heard back very quickly with a contract offer. Needless to say, we were elated! That first contract has turned into two contracts for a total of three books, with the outline for five more books, taking our wonderful relationship with Entangled into 2015. Some days it feels almost like having tenure!

Enough about “how” it all started. Let’s focus on “how” it works! First of all, we both had to acknowledge the fact that our voices are entirely different. Patti’s strength is dialogue while Nancy’s is all about the frivolous, touchy-feely, steamy stuff! Luckily, we do share an almost uncanny ability to spot what the other is doing wrong. However, with such divergent writing styles, we knew we’d never be able to alternate scenes or chapters. So, we devised our own way of team writing. One of us writes the entire book while the other is responsible for all line edits, final read-through and acts as the liaison between the team and the publisher. Then, next book, we switch roles.

That’s not to say, the words are set in stone, because everything is negotiable. If Nancy’s dialogue sucks (see Nancy shake head emphatically), then we discuss it rationally and come up with the best alternative. If Patti’s love scene isn’t “steamy” enough, Nancy always re-writes it! (See Patti shaking fist!)

For the second book in the series, tentatively titled, The Lawman’s Agreement, we tried a new tactic. First, we wrote a synopsis, and then broke the synopsis down into a twenty-five chapter outline. We set a writing quota of one chapter per day. Once five chapters had been completed, they were sent to the other team member for editing, then the next five and so on. We kept this schedule for the entire book, finishing it within five weeks, including the final read-through and getting it sent off to the editor.

We’re not saying the system would work for everyone, especially if you can’t agree to disagree sometimes. However, it’s certainly worked for us. Either Nancy or Patti would love to discuss the details of our system with would-be writing teams and how best to maximize your individual strengths. We welcome your emails on the subject, or any writing subject in general.

About the book:

Felicity Beaumont is a rich man's willful daughter with a heart of gold who wants more than anything to free her father's illegally indentured workers.

When she devises a plan to move them north with the help of Jake McCade, owner of the gambling boat known as the River Maiden, she finds she's run afoul of not only her father but of the man she's duped into helping her.

As her plan begins to unravel, she and Jake are forced into a marriage for the sake of propriety and soon discover the most important thing to them both is the life they're now building together.

About the Authors:

Nancy Fraser has been writing since she was a child, most often on walls and with crayons or (heaven forbid) permanent marker. Since first becoming published in 1996, Nancy has received numerous five star reviews for her futuristic, time travel romance. She's also published in short contemporary, historical romance and is contracted for a series of ten vintage historical romances set during the Golden Decade of Rock & Roll (1955-1964). When not writing fiction, Nancy likes to spend time with her grandchildren and is excitedly awaiting a new addition to her grand-family in July.

Patti Shenberger recently signed a contract for her sixteenth romance novel/novella sale. She is published in short contemporary, historical time travel, paranormal and erotic romance, as well as multi-published in fiction and non-fiction magazine length work. She's a wife, mother of two, mother-in-law of two and a pet mommy of two. Patti is a lifelong resident of Michigan, where she complains about the heat in the summer and the snow in the winter. When she's not writing, Patti can be found with her nose buried in a book.

As part of a tour-wide giveaway the authors are offering one lucky winner the chance to not only name the hotel which will appear in the second McCade Legacy novel, but will also have their name used as a character in the book as well!

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Monday, May 20, 2013

Maybe the capitalization of the title was a little unnecessary but I found it to be exclaiming the very thing that I felt needed to be exclaimed! This weekend was lovely! Absolutely perfect for writing and taking photography which is exactly what I did. I mean, it did deprive me of the internet but that's perfectly fine, right? A little withdrawal, a few symptoms, but nothing major.

Now, I shoud get talking about what I mean by this title that I've given today's post and that is exactly what it says: photography is equivalent to inspiration and gives a ton of ideas.

Shall I give an example? Alright, how about this :

How much inspiration can you glean from this one picture?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I decided that I would create my own thousand worded picture and take a ton this weekend! Albeit they aren't exactly this kind of picture. I don't have the people nor the equipement to take such a beautiful image.

I, however, suggest that you all take a gander outside and walk around a little. Just bring a camera, a water bottle, and sit outside. You'll look around a bit, see some birds hear some sounds and then ... it'll hit you!

You'll be smack dab in the middle of you thoughts running around you, ideas swirling and your camera there to capture it all in an instant! I mean, sometimes it's not obvious but to give a little example of what I mean I'll describe a situation :

I was sitting silently at the edge of a pond, small rivulets of water streamed over damp moss covered rocks. I had my camera hanging around my neck, it was uncomfortable in the stifling heat. I watched the water weave its way around rock after rock before creating a small pool where a bird sat sipping from the small basin. If I tried hard enough, I could imagine the bird to be a cyborg, ever-watchful. It was waiting for an approaching subject so that it could relay the information to the owner. Or, I could picture small fairies urging the bird to drink, nursing it back to health from when it had fallen from its nest.

As you can see there are a ton of different scenarios. It was at that moment that I took the picture - certain to retain the inspiration forever!

Haha, see? Inspiration is everywhere. EVERYWHERE, I tell you. If you don't believe me then take a good hard look and see for yourself.

- Anyways, that's really all I've got to talk about today. Tomorrow I'll bring up some good poetry information that you'll be glad to retain, right?

Sunday, May 12, 2013

I'm sure we've all had those days where you just forget things and try as you might to remember them the memory just never comes back, right? It's quite a horrible feelings, isn't it? I find it just drives me insane when that happens.

For example, this weekend I was visiting my father down in Narnia when low and behold we're on our way back when I remember that I forgot my backpack. Well, say goodbye to textbooks and notes. They definitely weren't with me in the car. Come to think of it, I only remembered the backpack when I stepped out of the car on my own front yard in Azkaban. Quite a pain!

Now, a good trick to avoid forgetting things in your writing is - first and foremost - to write it down! You'd think this would be obvious, right? Well it wasn't for me, at first. I thought that I could remember every little detail in this head of mine, but that was quite a blunder. Let me tell you that going to sleep doesn't help that little plan of remembering everything because I forgot my entire plot the next morning.

That was a really bad experience for me. Also, since I don't have time to be writing of late - due to upcoming exams in 26 days - I am stuck writing down notes whenever I can in anticipation for the summer!

I'm sure you're all just as excited as I am for the summer, right? If you're not excited then you're probably going to be in summer school or you've got a really agonizing summer job to do, am I right? Heh, you'll get there. The excitement will soon begin.

Just wait for it.

Alright, that's all I've got to say for today as I've got to finish some homework that my kind father dared to email to me. :) Lucky me, right?

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

When it comes to writing romance, you have no choice but to be creative.

Over the last however many years people have been writing fiction, there have got to be millions, if not billions, of romance story's that have been told. The really good ones that stand out, like Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, one of my favorites, have unique love story's. Maybe it's not so much anymore as it as was when it was published and this is because so many other people have decided that they liked the romance story so much they wanted to do the same thing.

Now it's okay to be inspired by another love story, great even to be reading and then get your own idea from something else. But to take that same idea, same concept really not just for romance but anything, isn't being creative. Come up with something that's new and fresh, something that will make readers eyes glisten in awe.

Maybe someone you know, a family member or a friend, has a unique love story. Perhaps they met their partner in a weird or interesting way. Or when they got into a relationship, there was something to strengthen their relationship that you've never read about in a book before. My grandmother told me about how my grandfather asked her out for the first time and it was knee slapping funny and totally unlike anything that I've ever seen in a book before.

It was a cold winter night in Illinois, year; a long time ago. My grandmother was eighteen and working at a dollar store. A couple of hours before closing, a boy that she was going to college with came in and started talking to her. A guy friend of hers had told her just the other day that this guy, Joe, had broken up with his girlfriend in Canada and that he was interested in my grandmother, Shirley.

Shirley, being the young, innocent thing that she was, didn't think much about it or the fact that Joe's heat was out and that he'd chosen that little store to go to to stay warm. They talked between customers and had some laughs, but when it was time to close up, she grabbed her coat and was out of there, with a simple goodbye to Joe.

He rushed out of the store and called to her. "I've got an important question to ask you," he told her as he caught up to her.

Now, as I said, Shirley was young and to her, the only important question that a man could ask a woman was obvious. So she replied without letting him ask his question. "No, I will not marry you." Lucky for her, my grandfather didn't turn and run for the hills but laughed it off and just asked if she wanted to go on a date. To that she said yes and six months later, they were happily married.

This story is just so cute and sweet and original. Though it took place several years before I was born, it can be used in any time period and it can lead in so many directions. But the point is that it's something new and never seen before and it's the reason that I'm where I am today. If this moment hadn't have happened, then who knows if my grandparents would have gone out.

So when writing a romance story, remember that it all is leading up to the end, so start with a good beginning and make it unique because not every single couple is exactly the same and they aren't all going to meet in the same way.

Ah! Such a beautiful day it is outside! I went out for fries under the bridge today, and let me tell you that it was quite wonderful. Can't wait until the weather gets even warmer for some time to tan. Now what to do, what to do? Perhaps I shall explain the other half of this title?

Yes, I believe I shall.

Now, I don't know how many of our readers are bilingual but I was given some work to do in my French class. (I should probably mention that I go to an all French school.) So this work that I have to do involves writing a French poem. Now let me tell you that the French language is very difficult to rhyme with and it is very difficult to make sense!

I am literally quite tongue tied trying to say and deliver the messages that I want in this poem of mine. If you want a part of the draft then here you go :

Sasie dans une cage elle-meme eriger

les ailes dechirer, briser a terre

la noiceaur teint ces plumes un noir si profond

les mains salles le salit par l'enterre

Now, unfortunately I can't add the correct accents and this is definitely a draft but a rough translation is this :

Captured in a cage she herself made

her wings are ripped, broken on the ground

the blackness taints her wings a deep black

dirty hands dirty her by burrying her

Someone please revoke my poet's license! I swear this has to be the worst poem I have ever written, no matter if it be in French! The French language has caused me great pain in writing this. I hope to God that I get better eventually. Or I am going to have some serious problems in the future as a poet.

I think that, in the future, we'll have to hold a contest for some of you poets out there! It would be an interesting thing to see some of the stuff you all write!

Well, that's really all I've got to say for now. I'll write some more later on, and maybe post a couple of tips on how to write great poetry. I think it would be fun, don't you?

Hi everyone! I'm really excited to announce that we'll have yet another cover reveal! *does a jig* This book is called Sleeper(by the way, I'm totally in love with this title!) by the lovely S. M. Johnson.

And, can I get a drum roll, please? *drum roll*.....

TADA!:

A little bit about the book:

After a life saving heart transplant, eighteen-year-old Mishca Richardson is plagued by nightmares and an urgent desire to find her birth parents, which she puts down to post-operation depression. But her new heart seems to bring more than a second chance at life in the form of speed, strength and love at first sight.

About the author:

Sharon is a writer from Mackay in Queensland, Australia who has short stories published in anthologies and was also runner-up in the Australian Literary Review's Young Adult short story contest with KARMA. By day she is a public relations executive and by night she writes weird fiction and soulful contemporaries while her husband, two sons and cat are fast asleep.

Find her on...

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorsmjohnston

Twitter: https://twitter.com/S_M_Johnston

Her Website: www.smjohnston.com

Her Blog: www.downunderwonderings.blogspot.com

Personally, I'm very excited to get my hands on a copy of this book. It's a shame I'm going to have to wait until December 2nd! But, I'll for sure be one of the first to get my hands on this novel!